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My Grandmother’s Cologne Cousins: More New Records

Aaron Knappstein, our Cologne guide, really pulled the rabbit out of the hat when he found the Schopfloch death records for my four-times great-grandparents, Amson Nussbaum and Voegele Welsch, but his magic tricks did not end there. He also was able to locate birth records for a number of the children of Jakob Schoenthal and Charlotte Lilienfeld.

My great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal had two siblings who did not immigrate to America, and his older brother Jakob was one of them. Jakob married Charlotte Lilienfeld and was a merchant in Cologne. He and Charlotte had five children: Johanna, Lee, Meyer, Henriette, and Erna. They were my grandmother Eva’s first cousins.

Thus far Aaron has located birth records for four of the children: Johanna, Lee, Meyer, and Erna. I hope that he is able to find the record for Henriette as it would indeed be tragic if her record was the only one that did not survive, just as she was the only sibling who did not survive.

Whenever I see a gap of many years between the birth of siblings I wonder if there are more children born that were not recorded or who died before birth, etc. That is not the case here but when you don’t have the records these questions become the catalyst for a quest!

Emily brings up a good point here. It is quite true with children born in America before birth certificates came into use in the early 1900s. However, in Europe, record keeping was much more constant. If a birth record is not found for a child during “gap years” it is a good idea to check deaths. Stillbirths were registered but only as deaths. Of course, in later years a woman may not have been as fertile and either party may have been too tired to perform their marital duties. Or they may have figured out their own natural birth control.
Kudos to Aaron for searching out the records!